let's do it, let's fall in love
by garyprestons
Summary: an alternate take on 2x03. what if things had gone as smoothly as they'd both hoped?


He's not exactly sure how he first came up with the theory that if he and Miranda slept together, all of the tension between them would somehow disappear. It's flimsy at best; the other result would be that everything would become completely awkward and uncomfortable between them and their friendship of over ten years would fall to ruin.

But she agrees with almost no hesitation and Gary's 90% convinced this will work. He's definitely counting on this to work. There's a lot at stake.

It's not as if he hasn't thought about it. It's hard not to when he sees her all the time, has almost kissed her more than once, and felt that irrational jealousy when he came back from Hong Kong to find her kissing another man. It's pretty safe to say that there's something between them, even if he's not completely sure what it is just yet.

Whatever it is, it's proving harder to switch from being just friends to, well, it. Because when they skip out on dinner and wind up back at her flat after grabbing burgers, he's so anxious to kiss her that everything seems to go wrong. After multiple false starts, he can see she's starting to lose her patience with herself and he feels the same way.

"Close your eyes," he says suddenly, an idea beginning to form.

Miranda looks bewildered. "What on earth for? We're not even kissing yet."

"I just think it might work better if it's spontaneous. If you're not expecting it. I think the anticipation is what's making it awkward for us. So just… close your eyes."

"Even with my eyes closed I'm still going to expect it! You're right there!" she reminds him, but he takes her hand in his.

"You trust me, right?"

Her gaze is intense. "I absolutely do, you know that." She sighs softly and then obediently closes her eyes. He can see her chest rising and falling quickly; she's still as nervous as he is. It's rather cute on her, actually.

He doesn't just go in for the kiss, though his mind is screaming at him to just go for it before he loses his nerve. Instead he squeezes her hand gently before letting go and moving it up her arm, over her shoulder, up the delicate curve of her neck and into her hair.

Miranda's lips part slightly.

And suddenly, before he can blink, she's kissing him. Her eyes are still closed, so it's a bit dangerous for a moment — their noses collide, but her lips land firmly on his and her arms wrap around his neck.

The anticipation may have been thrilling, but actually kissing her is beyond what he could have ever expected. He's kissed her before, but not like this. Even that one drunken kiss they shared back at uni hadn't been as perfect as this kiss. It's a kiss that's long overdue.

"You said you wanted it to be spontaneous," she says sweetly when she pulls away, and Gary grins at her, watches her eyes sparkling with happiness and delight, and then staggers slightly when she throws herself at him this time, knocking him onto his back and snogging him properly. The type of kiss that makes his heart race, his mind sort of blank out, and his pulse quicken. Because Miranda is on top of him, breasts pressed into his chest, her hands in his hair and he's pretty sure that's her tongue swiping along his bottom lip—

He wonders why he waited so long to kiss her like this. Wonders how he managed to physically hold back from doing it, because now that he's kissed her, he's not really sure he can stop. His hands skim over her hips and onto her waist, arms wrapping around her as the kiss quickly escalates. By the time she breaks away, her breathing ragged, his lungs are burning from a lack of oxygen but he's too happy to care.

"Wow," she manages to gasp out, and he grins up at her. The awkwardness has vanished completely, replaced by excitement and happiness and, no sense in denying it at this point, arousal. "That really worked, then."

"Yep. I think we can safely say it did." He sits up again, reaching out to brush her mussed hair away from her face and she beams at him, cheeks pink and flushed.

"Right. Um. Onward, then?" she asks, her voice stuttering just slightly.

"Onward," he agrees, and this time he gets to be the one to kiss her, pulling her against him once more and sinking his hands into her hair. She moans so softly it's almost inaudible, but he hears it, and it's quite possibly the sexiest thing she's ever done. She's practically in his lap at this point, and though he's really not picky about where exactly they do the whole sleeping together part, he has a feeling they should probably slow down before things go absolutely mental.

"You've never seen my bedroom, have you?" she asks, her lips brushing along his jaw. "Genuinely curious." Her fingers curl into the back of his shirt.

"Can't say I have," he replies, hands still in her hair before he loosens his grip and lets her slide off of him and onto her feet. She takes one of his hands in hers, and that much at least is still familiar. Even if everything else is still so new and strange and exciting, the way her fingers fit between his is still the same, is constant.

"Right, then, the tour leaves now!" He can only follow as she leads him across the kitchen towards her closed bedroom door, and he sees her hand hesitate just for the slightest fraction of a second and it's enough for him to speak up.

"If you're not certain, we don't-"

It's the wrong thing to say; she quickly shakes her head.

"It's not that. It's just, how long have we been waiting to do this? And now, it's actually happening. It's just… surreal. Honestly, did you think it would be as easy as just saying 'we should sleep together"? And now, well, we are? Or are going to, anyway."

She opens the door to her bedroom as she waits for him to answer.

"If I had, I think we would have ended up like this a lot sooner," he admits, and she grins shyly at him, her eyes lowered as she gives his hand a pointed tug and he lets her pull him through the door to her bedroom.

It's pretty much exactly what he'd pictured in his mind dozens of times before. Every shelf and surface full of knick-knacks and treasures and books and all the things he knows she loves. The only light is from the lamp beside the bed, the book she's obviously been reading sitting next to it on the nightstand. It's warm and lived-in and it's so her that he feels that same bright, happy feeling he gets when he's close to her.

She sits down on the edge of the bed; he does the same and this time when he kisses her there's no false start, no hesitation. He's been so desperate to kiss her all night that he never wants to even think of the moment when he'll have to stop. It's why he's hoping this experiment will work. That after all is said and done, the answer will be clear: they're good together (he's always thought they would be) and they should be together.

Surely she can sense the desperation in the way he kisses her, because she matches him with equal urgency, pressing insistently against him and he barely holds back a groan at the feel of her curves. Her scent is warm and intoxicating and her kisses taste faintly of tea and sugar. All of these small clues remind him that this is Miranda he's kissing, that it couldn't be anyone else but her. He couldn't want anyone else but her.

Clothes are sorted next – she reaches for the top buttons of his shirt and her fingers are shaking and clumsy. He doesn't say anything, because he's just as nervous and excited, and instead starts from the bottom to help her out. They meet in the middle, and he sees her bite her lip in anticipation before she opens his shirt and pushes it off of his shoulders.

"Wow," she breathes, and he grins at her a bit self-consciously. Her hands are warm on his chest when she touches him, a bit hesitantly at first like she's not sure she's supposed to. He leans in toward her to help her out of her jumper, leaving her in the pretty dress she wore to dinner.

He reaches behind her for the zip, and immediately feels resistance. It's caught in the fabric and won't come down no matter how much he pulls at it.

"Uh, technical difficulties," he apologises, and she twists around to try and see, almost elbowing him in the face in the process. "Careful, you'll get tangled!"

"What's happening?" she asks, panic in her voice.

"Zip's stuck. Just stay still, I think I've almost got it-"

It comes free after another firm tug, and slides easily down her back. She relaxes, her shoulders drop, and he can't hold back the quiet laugh at the mishap.

"It does that sometimes. Bloody thing."

"It looks lovely on you, though. The dress, I mean," he tells her, and she blushes. The dress slips off of her shoulders, revealing soft, creamy skin under his hands and the straps of her bra. He can hear her breathing quicken, and not for the first time since this started he has to pause and take it all in – that they're actually doing it, giving their relationship that push forward.

She pulls her dress up and over her head and he inhales sharply. When she manages to free herself from her dress and set it aside, she catches him staring and bites her lip nervously again, and it's adorable and sexy and she doesn't realise it.

She climbs off the bed and starts to pull off her tights. "Right, sorry, I really don't think there's a way to do this that doesn't look absolutely ridiculous." Gary just grins at her, watching as her long legs are revealed inch by inch until she steps out of the tights with a relieved sigh. "Always feel a bit like sausage in those. One size does not fit all!" She giggles nervously and he grabs her hands and pulls her back to him. They tumble back down onto the bed together, Miranda above him, her hair a curtain around her face as she looks down at him with awe in her eyes.

"You're beautiful." It slips out, and he hadn't meant to get all sappy and romantic on her, because if this goes horrible they can say it was just sex without anything attached, but it's too late for that. So he repeats it, watching her expression soften with happiness.

"You're just saying that so I'll sleep with you," she jokes, and then reaches for his trousers, fingers lightly brushing against his skin as she undoes his belt and then the fasten. He lets out a sigh of relief of his own when they're off, and as she settles down on top of him for another round of lazy kissing, he can't hold back a groan this time. Because she's so soft and warm and it's just their pants separating them; he can tell she's aroused by the way her brown eyes darken when he bucks his hips up against hers. And then, to his dismay, she pulls away suddenly.

"Miranda?" he asks, concerned. He tries to ignore the aching desire she's brought out of him and focus on her face, her expression hard to decipher.

"It's just… what I said earlier, about um, having fun. Of the sexual kind. It doesn't happen that frequently. It's been a while. Weeks. A couple months. Okay, actually a year or two…" She huffs in frustration before looking away. "Four years. I haven't had sex in four years."

She's still blushing, and he forgets about their state of undress and sits up, sliding his arms around her waist and holding her until she looks at him again.

"Hey. That doesn't matter. I don't care about who you've been with before, or how long ago it was. It's about us, yeah? Right here, right now. This is what matters." She nods quickly, silently agreeing with him, and her smile is back, infectious as ever. "I mean, you do still remember how to do it, right?" he teases her gently, and she slaps him lightly on the chest and then leaves her hand there over his heart. It's racing, and feeling that, she leans in and kisses him again, and they hurry to finish undressing one another. He feels like he can't get her out of her clothes fast enough; he wants to see her, all of her.

The feeling of her naked skin against his is like nothing he's ever felt before. He can't stop touching her long enough to actually get a good look at her, and when he does he just starts all over again, fingers exploring every inch of her pale skin, finding the spots that make her giggle because she's ticklish, the places that make her moan because he's never touched her there before, not like this.

They pause long enough for him to grab his wallet from his discarded trousers; he'll freely admit he came prepared just in case she'd agreed with his theory.

"You knew this was going to happen," she whispers as he climbs back onto the bed and into her arms, kissing her ardently. She doesn't look angry or offended, merely surprised.

"Not really. I just sort of… hoped."

"Mhm. To be fair, I didn't exactly need much convincing, did I?"

He chuckles quietly and resumes kissing her, losing himself in the feel of her lips and breath against his own. As much as he wants to be with her, the kissing alone is already more than he could ever imagine and he takes his time kissing her. Her lips, her cheeks, along the soft curve of her jaw and neck, until she's sighing his name and pulling at his shoulders to bring him back to her.

It's slightly awkward at first; as attracted as he is to her, as badly as he wants her, it's still his first time with her and they've gone from being just friends to having sex with one another in the short timeframe of a few hours. But as he slips into her warmth and hears her shakily exhale against his cheek, and he stills to give them each a moment, he's beginning to get that this is possibly life-changing. That whatever happens next will either bring them closer together or just make things really, really awkward. And he trusts her enough to take that leap, to cross that threshold to discover what they could be together.

Her lips graze lightly against his cheek, and when he turns to look at her, her eyelids are heavy and her breathing ragged.

"Onward?" she manages to whisper, fingers digging into his back. She'd said it earlier and hearing her say it again now, he instinctively knows it's her way of telling him she's okay.

"Onward," he murmurs in reply, and she's so much more than just okay. She's incredible, amazing, lovely, sexy, captivating, all words he's never been brave enough to tell her right to her face, and she's his best friend. There's nobody in the world he'd rather be with at this moment. Nobody can match up to her, he thinks.

It takes them a bit to find a rhythm at the start; they're both eager and desperate to have this but at the same time he wants to make it last as long as he can, just in case it's the latter and this ends up being their first and last time. Once they find it, everything transforms and suddenly he can't think of anything but her, can't feel anything but her; each of his five senses are on overload and it's nothing but the dizzying pleasure and euphoria.

He kisses every part of her that he can reach, distracted by her hands in his hair and her body entwined with his. Whatever awkwardness had been there at the beginning has completely melted away for both of them; she freely gasps his name, and when his pace involuntarily hastens, her gasps turn into moans and he has to struggle to control himself because he still can't believe that she's this way because of him, that he's the reason she's reacting like this, throwing her self-consciousness aside and letting it happen. Because she's always been herself around him but she has limits, and he's recalled her doing something embarrassing and hiding for days. To see her like this is almost as arousing as the act itself.

She shakes beneath him; his eyes fly open just in time to see her come, and she's smiling. His heart skips a beat because not only does he believe they'd be amazing together after all of this, but he thinks he could fall in love with her someday. If he's not already; he's not entirely sure, because right now he's feeling absolutely everything all at the same time. With a call of her name, he follows her over the edge and falls.

When he lands, and the world comes back into focus, he knows for certain that he's already halfway there.

He carefully rolls off of her and onto his back to cool off his overheated body. She makes a soft, sleepy sound in protest and reaches for his hand. He grips it with what little strength he has at the moment, and waits for his galloping heart to slow. He has to gently pull his hand free from her grasp to go to the bathroom to wash up.

When he returns as quickly as he can, she's managed to crawl under the duvet and her eyes are closed. He slips his boxer shorts back on before sliding into bed beside her and trailing his fingertips along her arm, wondering if she's actually already asleep. But she smiles and her eyes flutter open, and he eases down onto his side facing her.

"Hi," he whispers quietly to her, and he just can't stop grinning.

"Hello," she replies, drawing out the word with a satisfied sigh. He moves closer to her and draws her toward him until she's half on top of him, her head on his chest. "Oh, good, you're a cuddler," she yawns softly, and he kisses the top of her head.

"Glad you approve."

The silence is comfortable and easy; he wraps his arms around her and thinks about tonight in contrast to last night. Last night, he'd been alone and wondering if he'd ever work up the nerve to do something about the limbo they seemed to be trapped in. Tonight, he actually has her in his arms, very naked and very real.

"We just had sex," she mumbles against his chest, her voice drowsy but happy.

"Yup. I know. I was there," he replies, giggling slightly and running his hand over her back in slow strokes. "So, not to ruin the loveliness of this moment, but we did have a theory to test."

"Which we tested with enthusiasm," she agrees, going along with it, and lifts her head off of his chest slightly to meet his gaze.

"It's not awkward, is it? It doesn't feel awkward." He's rambling a bit, because it's the truth. It's not awkward at all. It feels like the most natural, right, perfect moment, holding her, kissing her like she's his girlfriend. And he'd never admit that last bit, because they haven't even managed a proper date yet. They skipped over all of that to prove a theory and he wonders what happens next.

"It's not awkward. It's lovely. You're lovely." She pushes herself up slightly to kiss him, and he slides one hand into her hair as she does. "I think we're in trouble, though."

"Oh?"

She gives him a cheeky grin. "D'you want to test that theory again? Because I really want to."


End file.
